"Eight Songs for a Mad King Eight Songs for a Mad King is a monodrama by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies with a libretto by Randolph Stow, based on words of George III. The work was written for the South-African actor Roy Hart and the composer's ensemble, the Pierrot Players. It was premiered on 22 April 1969. Lasting half an hour, it is scored for a baritone with an extraordinary command of extended techniques covering more than five octaves, and six players (Pierrot ensemble + percussion): The songs derive from tunes played by an extant mechanical organ owned by George III,"
"Madness of King George"" the 42nd greatest British film of all time. The film depicts the ordeal of King George III whose bout of madness in 1788 touched off the Regency Crisis of 1788, triggering a power struggle between factions of Parliament under the conservative William Pitt the Younger and the reform-minded Charles James Fox. At first, the King's habits appear mildly eccentric, and are purposely ignored for reasons of state. The King is seen as being highly concerned with the wellbeing and productivity of England, and continually exhibits an encyclopedic knowledge of the families of even the most obscure"
"Orange; and Charles, Count of Angoulême. Other leading lords supported the revolt, including Philippe de Commines and Odet d’Aydie, count of Commines and governor of Guyenne. As a revolt against French royal authority it was supported by the foreign enemies of the King of France: England, Spain and Austria. Its principal outcome was the absorption of Brittany into the French kingdom. The derogatory expression ""Mad War"" to designate this struggle of major feudal lords against central royal power was coined by Paul Emile in his ""Histoire des faicts, gestes et conquestes des roys de France"", published in 1581. There is"
"controlled by his British mother and the Jews. Beyond Wilhelm, many of the ""reactionary and 'chauvinistic' circles in Germany"" had, in the words of the British historian John C. G. Röhl come to the ""...conviction that the Crown Prince and his liberal English wife were an alien, un-German force that must not be allowed to accede to the throne"". Frederick had been a heavy smoker for many years. At a ball held by William on 31 January 1887, a guest reported the Crown Prince ""was so hoarse that he could hardly say a word."" His hoarseness continued through February, and"
"potent King of England."" In this commission, the four towns of the Rhode Island colony declared their ""unfayned affection"" for the new king. The commission also armed Dr. Clarke, the able diplomat, with what he needed to fulfill his mission. He wrote a well-crafted letter on behalf of the colony asking for an experiment in liberty where the colony would become ""a Republic of Liberty under Law, in which every man is king and no man subject."" A 1658 letter from the United Colonies (Massachusetts, Plymouth, New Haven, and Connecticut) announced the arrival of the Quakers, calling them notorious heretics"
"of the colonies but was not going to do anything that would incur Royal disfavor. Smith was having trouble getting the Privy Council in England to pay attention to his pleas for the King to approve the consecration of a bishop that would reside in the American colonies. Archbishop of Canterbury Secker also sensed that the time was not yet right. The King was the Head of the Church of England, the same King the Americans revolted against. A modern look back at this period indicates that King George III's ""mental"" illness of an inherited biochemical etiology (porphyria) was rather"
"gawker. It is very possible that he felt ""homeless"" during this time and surely felt that he was in a ""limbo ... between public and private space"". In London, only a few of his works were still being published. However, not everyone viewed Smart's ""madness"" as problematic, and Johnson defended him, sometimes seriously and sometimes comically, many times. A century later, Robert Browning later remarked that ""A Song to David"" was great because Smart was mad, and that the poem allowed him to rank alongside of Milton and Keats. It is no wonder that a few of his loyal friends"
"reign, the king became more and more unpopular with his bourgeois-liberal subjects, his whims provoking their resistance and mockery, but remained quite popular with the common man. The king was a man of immense stature and with a boisterous voice. He could be gentle and kind, then suddenly he could become intimidating and even violent. He kicked and hit his servants about. He was inclined to terrorize and humiliate his courtiers. The king was cruel to animals as well. His ministers were afraid of him. Most people around him agreed that he was, to some degree, insane. The king could"
"the Mad. At the Castilian court in Burgos, the Queen is happily greeted by her subjects, but her marital life is still in turmoil. Philip is soon bewitched by the charms and spells of Aixa, a Moorish prostitute who uses her sexual attraction and black magic to secure Philip's favour. With this new lover, the King becomes noticeably indifferent toward his wife, which adds to her increasingly insane jealousy. Against the background of this troubled marriage, there are two opposed political parties at court, one Flemish, the other Castilian. The conspiring Flemish usurpers are headed by Señor de Veyre, Philip's"
"disease that would lead to him being deemed mad. He wrote, in Latin, a letter asking Samuel Swynfen, his godfather, about his health. Swynfen wrote back ""from the symptoms therein described, he could think nothing better of his disorder, than it had a tendency to insanity; and without great care might possibly terminate in the deprivation of his rational faculties."" This Swynfen's response only caused Johnson to fear becoming insane even more. However, Swynfen soon after showed Johnson's letter to others because of its ""extraordinary acuteness, research, and eloquence"", and this act was so upsetting to Johnson that he could"
"for Magdalen Hall. The king became insane in 1454. The Chancellor, John Kemp, Archbishop of Canterbury, died during the sitting of parliament, presided over by the Duke of York. Commissioners, headed by Waynflete, were therefore sent to Henry to ask the king to name a new Chancellor, apparently intending that Waynflete should be named. But no answer could be extracted from the king, and after some delay Lord Salisbury took the seals. During York's regency, both before and after the First Battle of St Albans, Waynflete took an active part in the proceedings of the Privy Council. With a view"
"secluded from him during his illness. They regularly visited him, but the visits tended to be uncomfortable, as he had a tendency to embrace them and refuse to let them go. During the 1788 illness of the King a conflict arose between the Queen and the Prince of Wales, who were both suspected of desiring to assume the Regency should the illness of the King become permanent, resulting in him being declared unfit to rule. The Queen suspected the Prince of Wales of a plan to have the King declared insane with the assistance of Doctor Warren, and to take"
"of him when Samuel Pepys introduced the naval programme ""Michael Malet, who, to make good the M’s in his name, is many times mightily mad, without a metaphor or a trope, said he knew no need we had of ships in time of peace, unless it were to carry away the Italian women again, meaning the duchess of York."" Later it was reported that he ""came to the Queen’s drawing room to show he can be as mad elsewhere as in the Parliament House, and there bawled out aloud to his royal highness, quite across the circle when the room"
"attempting to explain that his ""Christ-like powers"" had helped him to defeat the voices in his ear, he was declared unfit to plead by reason of insanity. He was discharged on the condition that he be committed to an asylum, but he remained at Newgate suffering occasional ""fits of rage"" until December 1791, when he was moved to Bethlem Royal Hospital. Like the earlier Nicholson case, the King was portrayed as treating an insane person accused of a crime with forgiveness and forbearance. John Frith (assailant) John Frith (b. c. 1760 - fl. 1791) was an Englishman who believed himself"
"Æthelred the Unready Æthelred II (Old English: ""Æþelræd"", ; 966 – 23 April 1016), known as the Unready, was King of the English from 978 to 1013 and again from 1014 until his death. His epithet does not derive from the modern word ""unready"", but rather from the Old English ""unræd"" (meaning ""poorly advised""); it is a pun on his name, which means ""well advised"". Æthelred was the son of King Edgar and Queen Ælfthryth. He came to the throne at about the age of 12, following the assassination of his older half-brother, Edward the Martyr. His brother's murder was"
"ceremonies with disdain, and many were offended by his abandonment of accepted social norms and mores. Government ministers and the royal family found Wallis Simpson's background and behaviour unacceptable for a potential queen. Rumours and innuendo about her circulated in society. The King's mother, Queen Mary, was even told that Simpson might have held some sort of sexual control over Edward, as she had released him from an undefined sexual dysfunction through practices learnt in a Chinese brothel. This view was partially shared by Alan Don, Chaplain to the Archbishop of Canterbury, who wrote that he suspected the King ""is"
"to Sellar and Yeatman, in English history kings are either ""Good"" or ""Bad"". The first ""Good King"" is the confusingly differentiated King Arthur/Alfred (Chapter V). Bad kings include King John, who when he came to the throne showed how much he deserved this epithet when he ""lost his temper and flung himself on the floor, foaming at the mouth and biting the rushes"" (Chapter XVIII). The death of Henry I from ""a surfeit of palfreys"" (recorded in other historical works as a ""surfeit of lampreys"", Chapter XIII) proves to be a paradigmatic case of the deaths of later monarchs through"
"King's sudden onset of insanity was seen by some as a sign of divine anger and punishment and by others as the result of sorcery; modern historians such as Knecht speculate that Charles might have been experiencing the onset of paranoid schizophrenia. Charles continued to be mentally fragile, believing he was made of glass, and according to historian Desmond Seward, running ""howling like a wolf down the corridors of the royal palaces"". Contemporary chronicler Jean Froissart wrote that the King's illness was so severe that he was ""far out of the way; no medicine could help him"". During the worst"
"three great victories of the ""Wonderful Year"" and the ""Year of Victories"" – Minden, Quebec and Quiberon Bay. Wolfe was renowned by his troops for being demanding on himself and on them. Although he was prone to illness, Wolfe was an active and restless figure. Amherst reported that Wolfe seemed to be everywhere at once. There was a story that when someone in the British Court branded the young Brigadier mad, King George II retorted, ""Mad, is he? Then I hope he will bite some of my other generals."" A cultured man, in 1759 during the Seven Years' War, before"
"Edmund I Edmund I (, pronounced ; 921 – 26 May 946) was King of the English from 939 until his death. His epithets include ""the Elder"", ""the Deed-doer"", ""the Just"", and ""the Magnificent"". Edmund was the son of Edward the Elder and his third wife Eadgifu of Kent, and a grandson of Alfred the Great. His father died when he was young, and was succeeded by his oldest son Æthelstan. Edmund came to the throne upon the death of his half-brother in 939, apparently with little opposition. His reign was marked by almost constant warfare, including conquests or reconquests"
"a surfeit of over-eating or other causes. Other ""memorable"" monarchs include the Split King (Henry IV, Part 1 and Henry IV, Part 2) and Broody Mary. ""Memorable"" events in English history include the Disillusion of the Monasteries (Chapter XXXI); the struggle between the Cavaliers (characterised as ""Wrong but Wromantic"") and the Roundheads (characterised as ""Right but Repulsive"") in the English Civil War (Chapter XXXV); and The Industrial Revelation (Chapter XLIX). The book also contains five joke ""Test Papers"" interspersed among the chapters, which contain nonsense instructions including the famous ""Do not on any account attempt to write on both sides"
"William II of England William II (Old Norman: ""Williame""; – 2 August 1100), the third son of William the Conqueror, was King of England from 1087 until 1100, with powers over Normandy, and influence in Scotland. He was less successful in extending control into Wales. William is commonly known as William Rufus (""Rufus"" being Latin for ""the Red""), perhaps because of his ruddy appearance or, more likely, due to having red hair as a child that grew out in later life. William was a figure of complex temperament, capable of both bellicosity and flamboyance. He did not marry, nor did"
"Edward I of England Edward I (17/18 June 1239 – 7 July 1307), also known as Edward Longshanks and the Hammer of the Scots (), was King of England from 1272 to 1307. Before his accession to the throne, he was commonly referred to as The Lord Edward. The first son of Henry III, Edward was involved early in the political intrigues of his father's reign, which included an outright rebellion by the English barons. In 1259, he briefly sided with a baronial reform movement, supporting the Provisions of Oxford. After reconciliation with his father, however, he remained loyal throughout"
"play's description of Hamlet's inability to act out his revenge. Hamlet has been compared to the Earl of Essex, who was executed for leading a rebellion against Queen Elizabeth. Essex's situation has been analyzed by scholars for its revelations into Elizabethan ideas of madness in connection with treason as they connect with ""Hamlet"". Essex was largely seen as out of his mind by Elizabethans, and admitted to insanity on the scaffold before his death. Seen in the same context, Hamlet is quite possibly as mad as he is pretending to be, at least in an Elizabethan sense. Hamlet was a"
"Corona Regia Corona Regia (Latin for ""Royal Crown"") was a scandalous satire of King James I of England. It was written from the fictional perspective of an unfinished panegyric of the king found among the papers of Isaac Casaubon (1559–1614) and published by John Bill, the king's printer. In fact neither Casaubon nor Bill had anything to do with the publication. ""Corona Regia"" has been described as ""an important text in the history of satire, in the history of English monarchy, and in study of seventeenth-century English theological debates"". The king was so offended by the book that attempts to"
"succession and was proclaimed King Richard III on 26 June. The timing and extrajudicial nature of the deeds done to obtain the throne for Richard won him no popularity, and rumours that spoke ill of the new king spread throughout England. After they were declared bastards, the two princes were confined in the Tower of London and never seen in public again. Discontent with Richard's actions manifested itself in the summer after he took control of the country, as a conspiracy emerged to displace him from the throne. The rebels were mostly loyalists to Edward IV, who saw Richard as"
"sovereign from continental kings and queens or as further exalted forms of address for the monarch in official documents or the most formal situations. Richard II, according to Robert Lacey in his book Great Tales from English history, was the first English King to demand the title of 'Highness' or 'Majesty.' He also noted that, '...previous English Kings had been content to be addressed as ""My Lord"" '. ""Most Gracious Majesty"" is only used in the most formal of occasions. Around 1519 King Henry VIII decided Majesty should become the style of the sovereign of England. ""Majesty"", however, was not"
"he is ""king of the English, elevated by the right hand of the almighty to the throne of the whole kingdom of Britain"", and in one manuscript dedication he is even styled ""basileus et curagulus"", the titles of Byzantine emperors. Some historians are not impressed. ""Clearly"", comments Alex Woolf, ""King Æthelstan was a man who had pretensions,"" while in the view of Simon Keynes, ""Æthelstan A"" proclaimed his master king of Britain ""by wishful extension"". But according to George Molyneaux ""this is to apply an anachronistic standard: tenth-century kings had a loose but real hegemony throughout the island, and their"
"The crisis over the 'madness' of King George III produced a major strain in Anglo-Irish relations, as of the King's parliaments in both of his kingdoms possessed the theoretical right to nominate a regent, without the requirement that they choose the same person. However, both in fact chose The Prince of Wales, who served as The Prince Regent in both the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland. The British Government decided that the entire relationship between Britain and Ireland should be changed, with the merger of both states and parliaments. After one failed attempt, this finally was"
"seat at Loring Hall in Water Lane, North Cray, Kent on the advice of his doctor. On 9 August 1822 he had an audience with King George IV in which he appeared distracted and mentally disturbed. Among other surprising remarks he revealed to the King that he thought he was being blackmailed for homosexuality. Towards the end of his life there are increasing reports, both contemporaneous and in later memoirs, of exceptionally powerful rages and sudden bouts of uncharacteristic forgetfulness. He surprised his friends by admitting his belief in ghosts and other supernatural beings, in particular the ""radiant boy"", a"
"The Madness of King George The Madness of King George is a 1994 British biographical historical comedy-drama film directed by Nicholas Hytner and adapted by Alan Bennett from his own play, ""The Madness of George III"". It tells the true story of George III of Great Britain's deteriorating mental health, and his equally declining relationship with his eldest son, the Prince of Wales, particularly focusing on the period around the Regency Crisis of 1788–89. Modern medicine has suggested that the King's symptoms were the result of acute intermittent porphyria, although this theory has more recently been vigorously challenged, most notably"
"over the Regency. The followers of the Prince of Wales, notably Sir Gilbert Ellis, in turn suspected the Queen of a plan to have the King declared sane with the assistance of Doctor Willis and Prime Minister Pitt, so that he could have her appointed Regent should he fall ill again, and then have him declared insane again and assume the Regency. According to Doctor Warren, Doctor Willis had pressed him to declare the King sane on the orders of the Queen. In the Regency Bill of 1789, the Prince of Wales was declared Regent should the King become permanently"
"madness, possibly attributable to porphyria, which could have been triggered by an excess of rich wines, or more likely an over exposure to the arsenic related to the elaborate hats commonly worn in the Georgian period (though this diagnosis has been challenged, with various other causes being put forward, such as bipolar disorder). The court physicians were baffled by the symptoms and failed to treat the King successfully. In 1788 Willis was recommended to the increasingly concerned Queen Consort by an Equerry’s wife, whose mother Willis had treated successfully. Willis's treatment of the King at The White House, Kew, included"